Age Differences in Exercise Classes

auteurfille22

I recently got the chance to try out Zumba when I was visiting a friend in another city, and I loved it! As soon as I got home, I went online to see if my area had Zumba classes offered anywhere. I was really happy to find some. The only thing is, from the looks of the website, the people who take the classes are mostly (or all, from what I can tell) people above the age of 40. Of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I'm 18, and I'm worried about sticking out or other members of the class not being open to my participation. Do any of you take exercise classes where you are a different age than everyone else? Is it awkward? This might be a silly question but I'm a self-conscious person, especially when I work out, and I don't want to feel like other people are watching me.

dt3312

I am a senior citizen and I would love for younger people to be in the same classes. But some older people don't like younger people in their classes. I like to interact with people of different ages. It was really fun when I took a country line dance class and there were 2 fourteen year old girls in the class. Can you do a "drop-in" class and see how you like it?

Loralrose

I started taking dance classes at 12 and karate classes when I was 15. In both cases I was the only person under about 30 in the class, with average age being around 50. No one minded - in fact, I was kind of adopted as the class pet. I have also seen it go the other way where a young person was not welcomed into an older group. Usually the young person was being obnoxious in some way.

People are likely to accept you at any age if you are respectful and polite. The older your classmates are, the more important this is. Smile, be friendly, and odds are good you'll do fine.